GRAND FORKS, N.D. - The NCAA wants referees to clean up the after-the-whistle shenanigans in college hockey.
The Rules Committee announced its points of emphasis for the 2009-10 season on Thursday, and at the top of the list was eliminating both contact after the whistle and facewashing, the act of sticking a glove in an opponent's face.
Facewashing is a common form of retaliation that doesn't draw penalties.
Hockey gloves, covered in perspiration, tend to smell awful. So players will skate up to an opponent, stick their palm in his face and let him take a whiff of the stench.
The Rules Committee, however, views this as a violation of the "grasping the facemask" rule. Planting an open hand in an opponents face should result in a minor penalty, it says.
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Pushing the facemask or moving the hand back-and-forth on it should result in a major penalty, and twisting or pulling on the mask should be a game disqualification under the excessive roughness category.
"The committee believes altercations after the whistle are a growing and disturbing trend," the NCAA said in a release. "Any contact to the head tends to escalate altercations. After reviewing numerous situations, the committee expressed its concern about student-athlete safety as well as the negative effect on the game's image."
The NCAA is allowed to change rules every two years. This is not one of those years, but the committee can suggest points of emphasis to officials.
The other points of emphasis were to continue protecting the puck carrier from obstruction and to strictly enforce no hitting from behind.
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